erink's Weight History

erink's Latest Posts

Ground Turkey VS Ground Beef
Good for you reading the labels. Ground turkey can include skin and fat and other garbage parts (as can ground beef), so it's not always the same good choice as turkey breast meat. Bison is another red meat that's usually lower in fat than beef.

I haven't done this myself (thankful to not have fibromyalgia, though I've researched it as part of my job) but I'd guess that the food diary here could be a great tool for tracking what foods you're actually sensitive to (if any). Keep a symptom diary too and experiment with adding or removing foods from your diet for a week or so at a time, then correlate the symptoms and foods and see if there's a connection.

Check out the Pain Log and Fibro Log tools from the American Chronic Pain Association - http://theacpa.org/25/CommunicationTools.aspxYou might not want to use these exact forms for tracking your experience every day, but they will at least give you an idea of what kinds of things you might want to keep tabs on.

As far as weight loss, I'm not sure there is a difference when it comes to balancing carbs and protein if you have fibromyalgia. But I haven't looked into that.

There are tons of fibro resources available online, and self-help groups that can point you at other resources and helpful ideas for taking charge of your health and managing your life with fibromyalgia. Good luck!

posted 19 Oct 2010, 12:24

Weird (American?) Food
So, just got back from spending 2.5 weeks in England and I have to correct myself - Americans know nothing about cheese! So many better ones there, even in the supermarkets. Also all kinds of meat products we don't have.

So of course I ate everything I could see and bumped up about 5 pounds...sigh. Back to the gym for me!

posted 30 Sep 2010, 09:29

Weird (American?) Food
Whenever I travel to another country (or even another state in a different region of the US) I try to go to a supermarket or food store. Even in Canada there are different things (like bag milk and 7 varieties of Oreo cookies).

Real cheese is easy enough to get in the US, even supermarket-brand cheddar and meunster and colby and swiss are not too bad. But I do have a soft spot for the fake stuff too - American cheese goes great on a bacon burger, and fresh french fries smothered in Cheez Wiz or melted Velveeta are pretty awesome too. I have a friend who considers a McDonalds burger and a "real" burger to be two different foods that happen to have the same name - each has its strengths and weaknesses!

Not sure what the poster a few messages ago was getting at about bananas, though. Pretty much the _only_ bananas we get in the continental US are Dole or Chiquita. Whole Foods carries a different brand, but always the same ones (they also have organic bananas that look pretty much the same).

We Americans do love our processed foods, and for dieting it's always easier to track calories when they're on the label! But it's not all we eat. (We also eat restaurant food...no, just kidding!)

posted 01 Sep 2010, 12:59

Favorite breakfast?
@bitteninmd - try a small glass of orange juice (or a larger glass of vegetable juice) to ease into it. Another small step could be mini bagels - they're only about 100 calories each. Toast 'em and add a thin layer of cream cheese or butter (only a few calories). Another option if you're on the move is something like a granola bar - though keep in mind that most granola bars or "cereal bars" are basically cookies, so they're not that good for you and you don't want to rely on them. An apple or fruit yogurt is a decent portable snack or breakfast too.

I'm not avoiding carbs, so my breakfasts haven't changed much - cereal with skim milk, or toast with butter and honey (fewer calories than I thought!), or instant oatmeal, and black coffee.